Balancing a Human Touch and Automation in Content Creation

Artificial intelligence (AI) has come a long way in the past ten years.

The AI of today has been trained using machine-learning programs that mimic human cognition and can produce creative content in the blink of an eye.

AI programs like ChatGPT use an ever-expanding neural network to sift through a language model with over 175 million parameters. 

However, no matter how sophisticated AI becomes, marketers and business leaders still need to incorporate the human touch in their content creation. 

What Can AI Offer?

AI-generated content is one of the most controversial trends in visual content production today. Creatives are already using tools like DALL-E for idea generation and many business leaders see AI as a cheaper alternative to hiring real-life artists. Most AI programs require a subscription fee, but these fees still significantly undercut real-life content creators.

As well as being cheaper, AI is quicker than its human counterparts. AI is capable of producing accurate, human-like content in a fraction of the time that a content writer or artist requires. The Guardian even ran an AI-generated op-ed to show off the power of machine learning and language models. Amana Fontanella-Khan, Opinion Editor at the Guardian noted that the AI-generated piece “took less time to edit than many human op-eds.” 

However, AI has some clear limits. AI algorithms are only as good as their training parameters and programs regularly misfire. AI-generated content is essentially plagiarism, too. AI draws from the original content that it finds on the web to steal fragments of sentences and ideas without attribution. This is why Google continues to list low-quality AI-generated creative content as “spam” 

The Need for Human Content

At first glance, AI-generated content seems set to replace human creatives. However, AI can only work with the training programs and content it’s been fed. This means that AI will always be a step behind human-generated content. 

Instead of replacing human creators, business leaders should strive to incorporate AI in ways that support creatives. Blending humans and robotics is the best way to achieve greater efficiency while retaining creative control over the final product. Creators who use AI benefit from reduced errors and quicker idea generation without sacrificing authenticity or their creative integrity. 

Retaining human creatives is particularly important for organizations that work with local communities. AI isn’t capable of producing nuanced content about specific communities and has a history of producing content that is prejudiced or discriminatory. Community-focused content hinges on building authentic connections with an organization's stakeholders. Organizations must work with human creators if they want to incorporate personal stories and inclusivity in their marketing content. 

Quality Control 

AI can’t replace human content creators. However, AI can be used to improve quality control and reduce human error. 

Content writers around the globe already utilize AI during the writing and editing process. Programs like Grammarly and Writer.com use machine-learning algorithms to spot errors and suggest revisions. This can help writers minimize grammatical errors and improve their writing speed. 

Photographers and graphic designers can also leverage AI in their favor. Post-processing can be extremely time-consuming and costly. Programs like VanceAI and Photoshop use AI to speed up the editing process and spot errors before content gets published. These programs can add color to black-and-white images and adjust portrait photos to modify the subject's age, expression, and pose.

AI can also enhance videography and increase the efficiency of post-production edits. AI can help videographers by automatically color-grade scenes — even if the original content was shot on different cameras. AI can further aid video editors by automating effort-intensive tasks like rotoscoping and inpainting. 

Content Testing

Human-generated content is designed to inform consumers and create a personal connection between businesses and their stakeholders. However, personalizing every website and app to each visitor is impossible without AI-powered content. 

AI-powered content leverages big data and machine learning algorithms to present a personalized experience to each website visitor. Programs like the Adobe Experience Cloud can significantly improve a business's UX by breaking down data silos and automating the content that users see based on multivariate testing. 

This can enhance engagement rates among consumers and improve businesses' marketing ROI. However, the content that is shown to consumers should still be human-generated and chosen from a pre-selected list of marketing materials. 

Choosing the Right Approach

AI-generated content is a quicker and cheaper alternative to human-generated content. However, most customers do not want to consume content created by AI and are aware that AI-generated content is the result of plagiarism and appropriation. 

Business leaders who want to protect their brand image have to assume that consumers will spot AI when they see it. Customers will quickly turn away from businesses that spam their inboxes with automated content and will opt for competitors who still value the human touch instead.

That doesn’t mean that businesses have to turn their back on automation and AI altogether. Businesses can use AI to personalize landing pages, schedule and send email content, and improve the quality of human-generated content that their marketing departments create.